The coat of arms of Northern Ireland was granted to the Government of Northern Ireland in 1924, and went out of official use in 1972 when that government was prorogued.
Following the partition of Ireland in 1920 and the secession of the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom in 1922, Neville Rodwell Wilkinson, Ulster King of Arms, designed the great seal and flag of Northern Ireland in 1923. In January 1924, he held discussions with Northern Irish officials in London regarding the coat of arms. The final design was completed by Wilkinson's deputy Thomas Ulick Sadleir for approval by the Northern Ireland cabinet in April 1924. The artwork was approved and the Royal warrant signed by George V and issued through the Home Office on August 2, 1924 and registered in the Register of Arms in Dublin as follows:
- Royal Warrant Government of Northern Ireland
- Argent a cross gules, overall on a six pointed star of the field ensigned by an Imperial crown proper a dexter hand couped at the wrist of the second.
- Given at our Court of St. James in the 15th year of our reign 2nd August 1924 by His Majesty's command.
This was the same design as the Ulster Banner which had been designed in the previous year.
The supporters were granted in 1925, and consist of a red lion supporting a blue banner bearing a gold harp and crown, and an Irish elk in proper colours, supporting a banner of the arms of the De Burgo Earls of Ulster, the basis for the Flag of Ulster.
The supporters were blazoned as follows:
- Dexter a lion gules armed langued and collared or, supporting a flagstaff proper, therefrom flowing to the sinister a banner azure, charged with a harp or, stringed argent, surmounted by an imperial crown proper; Sinister an Irish elk proper, collared or, supporting a like staff, therefrom flowing to the dexter a banner or charged with a cross gules.
In 1971, the College of Arms in London added the compartment on which the supporters stand:
- On a grassy mount two flax plants each with three flowers on stems proper.
The grant has not been rescinded, but the arms are considered historical, as the body to which the arms were granted no longer exists, and so they cannot be used unless regranted to another armiger. The current Northern Ireland Executive does not use a coat of arms. The banner derived from the arms continues to be used to represent Northern Ireland at some sports events. Use today can be controversial in Northern Ireland.
Famous quotes containing the words northern ireland, coat of, coat, arms, northern and/or ireland:
“... in Northern Ireland, if you don’t have basic Christianity, rather than merely religion, all you get out of the experience of living is bitterness.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“Commit a crime and the world is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Essential truth, the truth of the intellectualists, the truth with no one thinking it, is like the coat that fits tho no one has ever tried it on, like the music that no ear has listened to. It is less real, not more real, than the verified article; and to attribute a superior degree of glory to it seems little more than a piece of perverse abstraction-worship.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one’s balance and keep afloat.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“Warmest climes but nurse the cruelest fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)